Pleased to announce my science fiction mystery novel Mass Wasting will be released in paperback before the end of this year (probably in 5×8).
The story follows veteran salvager Wilhelm Rhiner, and his investigation of a mysterious disturbance on a lunar outpost and acts as a tangential continuation of my previous scifi works Tatter and Kryos.
Though it is, in a broad sense, a continuation, I paid careful attention to ensure it would also function as a standalone work, so reading the previous novel isn’t necessary to understand the story (though it would enhance it).
I found working on the story challenging as it was rewarding, for I had never written a work which features scenes offworld that prominently incorporates less than earth-comperable gravity, which completely shifts the dynamic emphasis. In such a setting, one false description (such as a character “running full-tilt” or otherwise moving in a impossible manner) could ruin the whole effect. Additionally, unusual lighting, such as the day night bifurcation of the moon, constantly caused me pause, for such small details would be easy to overlook, for writer and reader alike, and yet, if of sufficient quantity, would eventually mar a scene with cumulative disorientation.
There was also the more general issue, pertinent to all mystery stories, of arranging the pieces of the enigma in such a fashion that it was possible, but not easy, for the reader to solve the conundrum before its unveiling. With the optimal response to the disclosure being, “How didn’t I see it?” or “I knew it!” rather than, “That came out of nowhere…”
Was good practice.
More to come.
/////Logos Literature 